Jennifer Guthrie and Shannon Nichol will be the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professors at the Knowlton School during the spring 2015 semester. Guthrie and Nichol are founding partners (with Kathryn Gustafson) of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), a landscape architecture practice based in Seattle, Washington. GGN was the 2011 recipient of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt's National Design Award. While at Knowlton, Guthrie and Nichol will teach in the Glimcher Seminar in the school’s Landscape Architecture Section and give a public presentation on March 25 as part of the Baumer Lecture Series. Glimcher Seminar students will visit Cleveland in January with Nichol and, in February, students from the they will travel to the GGN offices in Seattle.

Jennifer Guthrie's design leadership merges a guiding, experiential vision with innovative and precise detailing. Her work ranges broadly, from the neighborhood-scale - such as the new, urban district of green streets and mixed-use housing at the University of Washington - to public squares, gardens, and cultural institutions such as the Seattle Civic Center campus, the Lurie Garden at Millennium Park, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Guthrie’s clients have included the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and major universities and corporations. Her current projects include the Lower Rainier Vista project at the University of Washington, the UW School of Medicine South Lake Union campus, Nu Skin’s Corporate Headquarters and the Mercer Hall/UW Farm site, which combines student housing with urban agriculture. She lectures internationally and serves on the Landscape Architectural Foundation Board and the ASLA CEO Roundtable.

Shannon Nichol’s designs, including Millennium Park’s Lurie Garden, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus and Boston’s North End Parks, are widely recognized for being deeply embedded in their neighborhoods and natural contexts. Nichol’s work incorporates complex functions into simple frameworks and refined landforms. Her current projects include Brookfield Place Calgary, Seattle's Pike-Pine Renaissance Project, Phase II of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Campus and plans for Cleveland's historic Group Plan District and Civic Mall.

Nichol is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (Seattle). She lectures internationally, frequently juries for design awards and serves on advisory committees for universities and non-profits.

For more than a decade, the Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professorship is held each year by an internationally acclaimed practitioner in the field of landscape architecture. Previous Glimcher Professors have included Michel Desvigne, Adriaan Geuze, Tom Leader, Peter Walker and Michael Van Valkenburgh.